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Zappatore | |
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Directed by | Alfonso Brescia |
Written by | Alfonso Brescia, Piero Regnoli |
Starring | |
Music by | Eduardo Alfieri |
Production company | Compagnia Produttori Cinematografici - Panda |
Distributed by | Panda |
Release date |
|
Running time | 98 minutes |
Country | Italy |
Language | Italian |
Zappatore is an Italian drama film directed by Alfonso Brescia and starring Mario Merola. The film was released in Italy on 5 December 1980.
It is the "cine-scripted" which received the highest grossing theaters, ranking the 60th place of the most successful films in Italy in the 1980/81 season.
The film is loosely based on the eponymous song, written by Libero Bovio Fenwick Watkin and Ferdinando Albano.
Francesco Esposito and his wife Madeleine are two farmers who raised Mario, their only child, with love and dedication. To finance his education, they became indebted to a lender. Mario becomes a brilliant lawyer in Naples, the city in which he works, and falls in love with Nancy, the daughter of an Italian-American industrialist. Despite the potential for a happy ending, the story is one of guilt and shame that Mario must reconcile his newfound social position contrasted with the humble beginnings of his parents.
Andrea Chénier is a verismo opera in four acts by Umberto Giordano, set to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica, and first performed on 28 March 1896 at La Scala, Milan. The story is based loosely on the life of the French poet André Chénier (1762–1794), who was executed during the French Revolution. The character Carlo Gérard is partly based on Jean-Lambert Tallien, a leading figure in the Revolution. It remains popular with audiences, though less frequently performed than in the first half of the 20th century. One reason for its survival in the repertoire is the lyrical-dramatic music provided by Giordano for the tenor lead, which gives a talented singer opportunities to demonstrate his skills and flaunt his voice. Giuseppe Borgatti's triumph in the title role at the first performance immediately propelled him to the front rank of Italian opera singers. He went on to become Italy's greatest Wagnerian tenor, rather than a verismo-opera specialist.
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Canzone napoletana, sometimes referred to as Neapolitan song, is a generic term for a traditional form of music sung in the Neapolitan language, ordinarily for the male voice singing solo, although well represented by female soloists as well, and expressed in familiar genres such as the love song and serenade. Many of the songs are about the nostalgic longing for Naples as it once was. The genre consists of a large body of composed popular music—such songs as "'O sole mio"; "Torna a Surriento"; "Funiculì, Funiculà"; "Santa Lucia" and others.
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"Malafemmena" is a song written by the Neapolitan actor Totò in 1951. It has become one of the most popular Italian songs, a classic of the Canzone Napoletana genre, and has been recorded by many artists.
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